Читать книгу Blackmail - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 5

‘ARE you okay?’

Lee smiled, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. Her parents had named her, rather foolishly she sometimes thought, ‘Annabel-Lee,’ but she was ‘Lee’ to everyone who knew her, a tall, slender girl with long brown hair the colour of beechwoods in autumn, and as glossy as polished chestnuts. Her eyes were green, faintly tip-tilted and fringed with thick curling lashes—witch’s eyes, her father had once called them, and her mouth curved generously. No one looking at her mouth could doubt that she had a warm, deeply passionate nature.

Below them the Channel glinted silver in the morning sun. Excitement bubbled up inside her, as frothy and tingling as champagne.

‘There’ll be a hire car waiting for us at the airport.’ Michael Roberts, her boss, told her. ‘We’ll drive straight down to the Loire.’

Michael was the chief wine buyer for a prestigious supermarket chain and Lee was his assistant. She had been working for him for six weeks, but this was her first ‘field trip’, so to speak. Michael was in the middle of some delicate negotiations with a wine-grower in the Loire Valley, who so far had been reluctant to allow his grand and premier cru wines to be sold anywhere but in the most exclusive specialised wine shops. Michael was hoping to persuade him that while these first-class wines should quite rightly continue to be sold to the connoisseur, the English wine-drinking public was growing considerably more discerning and deserved to be able to purchase good wine.

There was considerable rivalry between the various supermarket chains concerning the quality of wines their buyers managed to secure for their customers, and to be able to add the Château Chauvigny label to their range would be a feather in Michael’s cap.

After lengthy negotiations the Comte de Chauvigny had invited Michael to visit the vineyards and taste the new wines, and Michael was hopeful that this meant that the Comte was prepared to do business with them.

‘At this time of the year we’re likely to be the Comte’s only guests,’ Michael warned Lee, as the seat belt warning lights flashed up, signalling the end of their journey. ‘The grand and premier cru wines will be tasted later in the year by the connoisseurs lucky enough to be able to buy them. What does that fiancé of your’s think about you and me flying off to France together?’ he asked with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘You’re quite a career girl, aren’t you? How will that tie in with marriage to a Boston Brahmin with a banking empire to inherit?’

‘Drew knows how much my career means to me,’ Lee said firmly. She had first met her fiancé when she had been working at a vineyard in Australia. They had fallen in love almost at first sight, and there had been little time to discuss such mundane matters as the finer details of their future together. Their time had been short. Lee had already been accepted for her present job, and Drew had been tied up in delicate negotiations for the amalgamation of the banking empire headed by his father, with a Canadian associate.

Until these negotiations were completed there could be no question of their marriage taking place. Drew’s family came of Pilgrim stock and their wedding would figure largely in Boston’s social calendar. Lee had been a little amused by Drew’s insistence that their wedding should be so formal, but had good-naturedly agreed to all Drew’s proposals. She frowned slightly as she remembered that it was her turn to phone him. Their transatlantic phone calls were a weekly ritual, and she had already warned Drew that this week’s would have to be brief as she would be in France.

The aircraft was descending. Soon they would be landing. She was in France to do a job, Lee reminded herself, and not daydream about her fiancé. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. This job was important to her and she badly wanted to do well. So far she knew that Michael was pleased with her, so why did she have this vague feeling of anxiety?

Their hire car was a dark blue Renault, and they were going to share the driving. It would take them several hours to reach Chauvigny Michael had warned her. The bright May sunlight touched her hair, burnishing it with gold, and Michael smiled appreciatively. For the journey she was wearing a soft rose-pink linen suit—smart and casual—toned with a cream georgette blouse. She moved with a natural elegance, her legs long and slender as they carried her towards the car.

By mutual consent they had decided not to stop for a meal en route. French lunches were notoriously long-lasting affairs and they had already eaten on the plane. After Orléans Lee took over from Michael. She was a good driver; careful but with enough élan not to be panicked by the French habit of disconcerting overtaking, and soon learned to leave enough room between the Renault and the car in front to allow for any mishaps.

Michael Roberts watched her as she drove, amused by her total concentration. He had never had a female assistant before, but her qualifications and experience had been far superior to those of the other applicants for the job. A wine buyer needs a love of wine; a knowledge of its creation, and most of all that unlearnable ability to discern the superior from the very good, plus a large helping of intuition. The applicants for the job had all been requested to sample several different wines and then make their observations on them. Lee’s observations had been far superior to those of the other contenders. She had what was known in the trade as a ‘nose’. At first Michael had been dubious about her appointment. Above all else buying wine was a serious business, and who could behave seriously with a beautiful woman like Lee? Especially Frenchmen, by whom the buying of wine was taken very, very seriously indeed. However, he had soon discovered that his fears were groundless. As his assistant Lee took her duties very seriously; her manner towards their suppliers was as crisp and fresh as a good Muscadet. He had been both amused and pleased by the way she handled the one or two suppliers who had tried to palm her off with an inferior wine. She had given them very short shift indeed, but in such a way that they were never aware that they had been manipulated.

Lee wasn’t as unaware of Michael’s covert regard as she pretended. Her parents had emigrated to Australia when she was in her first year of university, mainly to be with her brother who had made his home there, and she had very quickly become independent, aware of the fine line which divided a pleasant but casual friendship with members of the opposite sex from something more intimate, and she was equally skilled in making sure that that line wasn’t crossed unless she expressly wished it to be. She had been so engrossed in her career that there hadn’t been time for serious relationships—until she met Drew. Her parents had been at first amused and then doubtful when she told them what she wanted to do. A school holiday spent in France had sparked off her ambition, and when they realised that she was serious they had done all they could to help her, and now, just when she was realising her first goal, Drew expected her to give it all up. And it wasn’t even as though they were to be married yet. It would be some time before he was able to leave Canada, and Lee had planned to save up all her holidays so that they could spend some time together, getting to know one another properly. She glanced at the diamond solitaire on her left hand—discreetly expensive without being flashy; the sort of ring considered appropriate by the Talbot family, no doubt. Dismissing the thought as unfair, she studied their surrounds. Chauvigny was closer to Nantes than Orléans and they were driving through the Loire Valley proper now, past huge châteaux, relics of the time of François I, but it was the vineyards that captured Lee’s attention.

In Saumur the valley narrowed, the hills honeycombed with caverns offering wine for sale. At one point the caverns had actually been turned into homes, but the road was too narrow for Lee to give them much attention. They drove through Angers where the Loire widened. Men were working in the vineyards, spraying the precious vines with water to create a protective layer of ice in case of a night frost.

‘As soon as they think the frosts are over they’ll begin spraying against pests,’ Michael told her. ‘The recipe for being a good vintner includes such qualities as patience, a thorough understanding of the soil and climate, its benefits and drawbacks, as well as all the complicated processes that go to making a first class wine, plus that indescribable something with which one either is, or is not, born. It can’t be learned.’

‘We turn off here,’ he instructed, indicting a steep right fork off the main road.

They climbed steadily through gently rolling hills, flattening out in the distance to Nantes and the coast, vines growing on either side of the road; through a small, almost mediaeval village, and then the château was in front of them, the smooth cream walls rising out of the still waters of a moat, fairy-tale spires, shining pale gold against the azure evening sky, the whole thing so impossibly beautiful, like a mirage floating on a calm oasis, that Lee could not understand why she felt this renewed sensation of nervous apprehension spiralling through her.

‘Well, well, it looks like the real thing,’ Michael commented, obviously impressed. ‘When a Frenchman talks about a château it can be anything from a country cottage to Buckingham Palace. It looks as though this one really meant it. All it needs is Errol Flynn to come flying through the window to complete the Hollywood image!’

A permanent ‘drawbridge’ spanned the moat; the Renault disturbed two elegant swans who had been gliding slowly below. Odd how such graceful water birds could look so clumsy on land, Lee thought absently, watching them.

The drawbridge gave way to an arched gateway, beyond which stretched an enclosed courtyard. She had seen homes equally impressive in Australia, she reminded herself, trying not to be quelled by the château’s air of ancient grandeur, coupled with an aura of discreet wealth. Wisteria blanketed the cream walls, racemes of purple-blue flowers smothering the gnarled branches, reminiscent in shape and size of the bunches of grapes themselves.

The sound of the car alerted the dog who had been sleeping in front of the large double doors. Lee stopped the car and wound down the window. The evening air was clean and fresh after the staleness of the Renault. She could hear the sound of water, and as her eyes grew accustomed to the creeping shadows she saw the shallow stone basin with its fountain, a boy holding—not a water jar, but a bunch of grapes from which sprang the droplets which filled the basin beneath, sparkling like champagne.

Tubs of geraniums and lobelia added a colourful splash to the cobbled courtyard, and as she looked about her, Lee realised that they were at the back of the château in what had probably once been the stables and outbuildings. She looked up at the house. Blank windows stared back at her, the circular towers she had noticed from the road having only narrow arrow slits, proclaiming their great age.

The double doors opened, the dying sun blinding Lee momentarily as it was reflected in the leaded windowpanes. A man emerged from the château dressed in an expensively tailored dove grey suit, his black hair brushed back off a face which was stamped with the indelible marks of centuries of breeding. He spoke sharply to the dog, which was still barking noisily, a wolfhound almost as high as the lean hips encased in the pale grey mohair. Nervous tension crawled sickeningly through Lee’s body, causing her hands to lock whitely on the steering wheel. Michael climbed out of the car and opened her door. She followed him on legs which suddenly seemed to have turned to cotton wool.

‘Michael Roberts,’ Michael announced, introducing himself, ‘and my assistant,’ he turned to Lee and smiled, ‘Lee Raven, and you, of course, must be …’

‘Gilles Frébourg, Comte de Chauvigny.’

He spoke perfect, accentless English—but then of course he always had, Lee thought numbly, battling against the shock that had locked her muscles in mute protest, the moment she looked into—and recognised—his arrogant features. After all, his mother was English.

‘Lee.’

His pronunciation of her name betrayed none of her shock. The hand he extended towards her was tanned, the fingers lean, his grip powerful.

‘Gilles.’ She murmured his name in the same perfunctory tone he had adopted, adding carelessly, ‘How is Aunt Caroline?’

His eyes gleamed, as though he was well aware that beneath her calm words lurked nerve-racking chaos.

‘Very well, and enjoying the Caribbean. Lee and I share an aunt in common,’ he explained to Michael, who was looking increasingly baffled. ‘Or at least, she is my aunt and …’

‘My godmother,’ Lee supplied, taking a deep breath and willing herself to appear calm. Talk about coincidence! She had never dreamed when she left England that their destination was also the home of Gilles Frébourg. And if she had nothing would have brought her within a thousand miles of it, she thought with a bitter smile.

‘Come inside.’ Gilles’ smile mocked her, as though he had read her mind. ‘My housekeeper will show you to your rooms. Tonight we do not dine formally, as it is your first in my home. I am sure you must be tired and will perhaps want an early night. Tomorrow we shall tour the vineyards.’

Thin gold slats of sunshine touched precious antiques, as they stepped into a vast square hall, its floor covered in a carpet so soft and beautiful that it seemed criminal to walk on it. The Chauvigny arms were cut in stone above the huge fireplace, and Lee remembered now, when it was too late, Aunt Caroline mentioning that her sister’s brother-in-law was a Comte.

They had all been at school together, her mother, Aunt Caroline, and Aunt Caroline’s sister, Gilles’ mother, although she, of course, had been several years older than the other two. Lee glanced at Gilles. It was almost six years since she had last seen him. He hadn’t changed, unless it was to become even more arrogantly male. Did he find her altered? He must do, she reflected. She had been sixteen the last time they met, shy, gawky, blushing fiery red every time he even looked at her, and now she was twenty-two with a patina of sophistication which came from living alone and managing her own affairs. That summer when she had met Gilles he had been staying with his aunt, following a bad bout of ‘flu. He had been twenty-five then.

The housekeeper, introduced as Madame Le Bon, was dressed in black, plump hands folded over the front of her dress as she obeyed Gilles’ summons, cold eyes assessing Lee in a way which she found unnerving.

There was a portrait facing them as she and Michael followed the woman upstairs. The man in it was wearing the uniform of Napoleon’s hussars, but the lean body beneath the dashing uniform and the face below the tousled black hair—worn longer, admittedly, than Gilles’—were quite unmistakably those of their host. Even Michael was aware of the resemblance, for he drew Lee’s attention to it as they passed beneath the huge painting. The man in the portrait seemed to possess a rakish, devil-may-care quality which in Gilles had been transmuted into a careless arrogance which Lee found less attractive, and which seemed to proclaim to the world that its opinion of him mattered not one jot and that he was a man who lived only by rules of his own making. A man whom it would be very, very, dangerous to cross—but then she already knew that, didn’t she?

‘You are on the same floor,’ the housekeeper told Michael and Lee. ‘If you wish adjoining rooms …’

Lee felt the colour burn along her cheeks at the manner in which the woman quite deliberately posed the question. She glanced at Michael, pointedly.

‘Miss Raven and I are business associates,’ he pointed out very firmly. ‘I’m sure that whatever has been arranged will be admirably suitable. Adjoining rooms are not necessary.

‘Not that I wouldn’t want to share a room with you,’ he told Lee a little later when he had settled in and come to see how she was progressing with her own unpacking. Her bedroom faced out on to the formal gardens in front of the château, although with the dusk creeping over them it was impossible to make out more than the shadowy outlines of clipped hedges, and smell the scent of early flowers. ‘Always supposing you were willing, which I know quite well you’re not, but it doesn’t say much for the morals of our countrymen and women, does it? Perhaps they’ve had a surfeit of visitors with ‘‘secretaries’’,’ he added with a grin.

It could well be that Michael was right, Lee reflected, but there had been something about the way the housekeeper had looked at her when she had spoken which had made Lee feel that the remarks had been directed specifically towards herself. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

‘You never told me you had connections in high places,’ Michael teased. ‘Had I known you knew the Comte personally we needn’t have bothered coming down here. You could have used your influence to get him to agree.’

‘I didn’t know he had inherited the title,’ Lee told him. ‘As you’ve probably guessed, our relationship, if you can call it that, is very tenuous, and there’s certainly no blood connection. I’ve only met him once before. I couldn’t even call us acquaintances.’

But there was more to it than that—much more, Lee reflected when Michael had left her to finish her unpacking and change for dinner. Such as her foolish sixteen-year-old self imagining she was in love with Gilles. It must have been the crush to beat all crushes. A small private boarding school where many of the girls were the daughters of strict Spanish and South American parents was not the ideal place to gain an adequate knowledge of sexual matters. She had been greener than grass; completely overwhelmed by the powerful attraction she felt for Gilles. Had he asked her to lie down and die for him no doubt she would have done so. Her infatuation had been of the order that asks no more of the beloved being than merely that he existed. There had been no sexual awareness in her adoration apart from that which goes hand in glove with a girl’s first love. She put it all behind her long ago, especially its grubby, sordid ending, which had done so much to sully her memories of that year.

Her bedroom was vast. Their visit to the château was to be a short one—three days—which would allow them to see the vineyards, the cellars where the wine was stored, and still allow some time for the negotiations which Michael hoped would result in them securing the Chauvigny label for Westbury’s. She wondered if she ought to alert Michael to the fact that her being his assistant might seriously detract from his chance of doing so, and then decided against it. She was remembering Gilles with the eyes of a sixteen-year-old child. It was surely hardly likely that an adult male of thirty-one would bear a grudge against a child of sixteen.

Gilles certainly believed in treating his guests lavishly, she reflected, hanging the neat, understated toning separates she had brought with her in the vast fitted wardrobes which lined one wall of the room, their fronts mirrored and decorated with delicate panel mouldings to match the rest of the bedroom, which was furnished with what she suspected were genuine French Empire antiques. It wasn’t hard at all to imagine a provocatively gowned Josephine reclining on the pale green satin-covered chaise-longue, waiting impatiently for her lover.

Everything in the room matched; from the self-coloured design on the pale green silk wall coverings, to the curtains and bed covers.

A beautiful ladies’ writing desk was set beneath the window with a matching chair; the dressing table was French Empire, all white and gold with delicate spindly legs, the table lamps either side of the huge double bed the only modern touch, but even these might have been made for this room.

Lee wasn’t a fool. The furnishing in this room—from the precious silks down to the faded but still beautiful pale green and pink carpet which she suspected must be Aubusson—must surely be worth a king’s ransom; and this was only one of the château’s many rooms. Gilles must obviously be a very wealthy man; a man who could afford to pick and choose to whom he sold his wine. No doubt after the vintage he would hold those dinner parties for which French vignerons are so famous, when the cognoscenti gathered to partake of lavish dinners conducted in formal surroundings, all carefully designed as a paean of tribute to the evening’s guest of honour—the wine.

This was the first time Lee had visited such an exclusive vineyard. In Australia, where she had spent a year working alongside a grower in his own vineyards, things were much more casual, in keeping with the young vigour of their wines. Now she was grateful for the momentary memory of her teenage visit to a French vineyard which had urged her to pack a slender sheath of a black velvet dress.

Her bedroom had its own private bathroom; so blatantly luxurious that she caught her breath in bemusement as she stared first at the sunken marble bath and then the gold fittings. Even the floor and walls were marble, and she felt as decadent as a harem girl whose one desire in life was to pleasure her master, as she sank into the deep, hot water and luxuriated with abandoned delight. In London she shared a flat with two other working girls, and there was rarely time for more than a workmanlike shower, and the odd long soak when she had the flat all to herself.

Lifting one long, slender leg from the suds, she eyed it dispassionately. Gilles certainly knew how to live. Why had he not married? Surely a home and responsibilities such as his must make the production of a son and heir imperative, and Frenchmen were normally so careful in these matters. He was, after all, thirty-one. Not old … she laughed aloud at the thought of anyone daring to think such a vigorous and aristocratic man as Gilles old. Even when he did eventually reach old age he would still be devastatingly attractive. She frowned. Where were her thoughts leading her? Surely she was not still foolish enough to feel attracted to Gilles?

She got out of the bath and dried herself slowly. Of course she was not; she had learned her lesson. She glanced towards the telephone by her bed. She would ring Drew. Michael had assured her that she might, and that he would ensure that the call was paid for.

It didn’t take long to get through. Drew’s Boston accent reached her quite clearly across the miles that separated them. He sounded rather brusque, and Lee’s heart sank.

‘You decided to go, then?’

His question referred to the fact that he had not been pleased to learn that she was due to travel abroad with Michael. In fact he had tried very hard to dissuade her, and they had come perilously close to their first quarrel. Now, squashing her misgivings, Lee replied firmly, ‘It’s my job, Drew—you know that. You wouldn’t expect me to make a fuss because you have to work in Canada, would you?’

There was a pause, and then Drew’s voice saying coldly, ‘That’s different. There’s no need for you to work at all, Lee. As my wife you’ll be expected to fulfil certain duties. You should be spending these months before our marriage in Boston. Mom did invite you.’

So that she could be vetted as to her suitability to marry into such a prominent family, Lee thought resentfully.

‘So that she could make sure I don’t eat my peas off my knife?’ she remarked sarcastically, instantly wishing the words unsaid as she caught Drew’s swiftly indrawn breath.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ He sounded stiff now, and angry. ‘All Mom wanted to do was to introduce you around the family. When we’re married we’ll be living in Boston, and it will help if you already know the ropes. Mom will propose you to the charity committees the family work for, and …’

‘Charity committees?’ Once again Lee’s hot tongue ran away with her. ‘Is that how you expect me to spend the rest of my life Drew? I already have a career …’

‘Which takes you gallivanting all over the place with other men. I want my wife at home, Lee.’

All at once she understood. He was jealous of Michael! An understanding smile curved her mouth. How silly of him! Michael was in his late forties and well and truly married. All at once she wished the width of the Atlantic did not lie between them, but she had already been on the phone for several minutes. She glanced at her watch and said hurriedly, ‘Drew, I can’t talk any more now. But I’ll write soon …’

She hoped he would say that he loved her, but he hung up without doing so, and she told herself it had probably been because someone might have overheard. It was too late now to regret those impetuously hasty words. She could only hope that her letter would mollify him. There wasn’t time to start it before dinner, and she tried to put the whole thing out of her mind until later. The black dress set off her creamy skin, still holding the faint sheen of her Australian tan. The neckline, high at the throat, plunged to a deep vee at the back, exposing the vulnerable line of her spine, drawing attention to the matt perfection of her flesh. Long sleeves hugged her arms to the wrists, the skirt skimming her narrow hips, a demure slit revealing several inches of thigh, now encased in sheer black stockings. Her mother had been with her when she bought the dress, and it was she who had suggested the stockings. ‘Something about that dress demands them,’ she had insisted firmly. ‘It’s a wicked, womanly dress that should only be worn when you’re feeling particularly female, and with it you must wear the sheerest stockings you can find.’

‘So that every man who sees me in it will know just what I’m wearing underneath it?’ Lee had exclaimed, scandalised. She had already realised that there was just no way she could wear a bra with the dress, and now her mother, of all people, was suggesting that she go a step farther!

‘So that every man who sees you in it will wonder what you’re wearing,’ her mother had corrected. ‘And hope he’s right! Besides,’ she concluded firmly, ‘there’s something about wearing stockings which will make you feel the way you ought to feel when you’re wearing that dress.’

It had been impossible to argue with her mother’s logic, but now Lee wasn’t so sure. The fine Dior stockings enhanced her long, slim legs, the velvet sumptuous enough on its own, without any jewellery. On impulse, Lee swept her hair into a smooth chignon, leaving only a few softening wisps to frame her face. All at once her eyes seemed larger, greener, the classical hairstyle revealing her perfect bone structure. When she looked in the mirror she saw not a pretty girl, but a beautiful woman, and for a moment it was almost like looking at a stranger. She even seemed to be moving more regally. She applied the merest hint of green eyeshadow, a blusher frosted with specks of gold, which had been a hideously expensive Christmas present from her brother and which gilded her delicately high cheekbones to perfection, then added a lip gloss, darker than her daytime lipstick. Perfume—her favourite Chanel completed her preparations and then, slipping on the delicately heeled black sandals, she surveyed her reflection in the mirror, rather like a soldier preparing for a hard battle, she admitted wryly.

Michael whistled when he saw her.

‘What happened?’ he begged. ‘I know Cinderella is supposed to be a French fairytale, but this is ridiculous!’

‘Are you trying to tell me that I arrived here in rags?’ Lee teased him.

‘No. But I certainly didn’t expect the brisk, businesslike young woman I left slightly less than an hour ago would turn into a beautiful seductress who looks as though she never does anything more arduous than peel the old grape!’

Lee laughed; as much at Michael’s bemused expression as his words. The sound ran round the enclosed silence. A door opened and Gilles walked towards them. Despite his claim that they would dine informally he was wearing a dinner suit, its impeccable fit emphasising the lean tautness of his body. Lee was immediately aware of him in a way that her far more naïve sixteen-year-old self had never been. Then he had dressed in jeans and tee-shirts, or sometimes when it was hot, just jeans, and yet she had never been aware of his body as she was now; the muscular thighs moulded by the soft black wool, the broad shoulders and powerful chest; the lean flat stomach.

‘Do you two have some means of communication I don’t know about?’ Michael complained. ‘I thought we were dining informally?’ He was wearing a lounge suit, and Gilles gave him a perfunctory smile.

‘Please forgive me. I nearly always change when I am home for dinner. The staff expect it.’

Lee stared at him. From her estimation of him she wouldn’t have thought he gave a damn what the staff expected.

‘It is necessary when one employs other people to make sure that one has their respect,’ he said to her, as though he had guessed her thoughts. ‘And there is no one quite so snobbish as a French peasant—unless it is an English butler.’

Michael laughed, but Lee did not. God, Gilles was arrogant—almost inhuman? Did he never laugh, cry, get angry or make love?

The last question was answered sooner than she had expected. They were in what Gilles described as the ‘main salon’, a huge room of timeless elegance of a much older period than her bedroom. Louis Quatorze, she thought, making an educated guess as she studied a small sofa table with the most beautiful inlaid marquetry top. Gilles had offered them a drink, but Lee had refused. She suspected that only house wines would be served during dinner and she did not want to cloud her palate by drinking anything else first. Neither of the two men drank either, and she would feel Gilles watching her with sardonic appraisal. He was a man born out of his time, she thought, watching his face. Why had she never seen before the ruthless arrogance, the privateer, the aristocrat written in every feature?

The door opened to admit Madame Le Bon. She gave Gilles a thin smile.

‘Madame est arrivée.’

Who was the woman who was so well known to Gilles’ household that she was merely referred to as Madame? Lee wondered. Gilles did not move, and Lee could almost feel the housekeeper’s disapproval. She looked at Lee, her eyes cold and hostile, leaving Lee to wonder what she had done to merit such palpable dislike, and all on the strength of two very brief meetings—and then she forgot all about the housekeeper as another woman stepped into the room. She was one of the most beautiful women Lee had ever seen. Her hair was a rich and glorious red, her skin the colour of milk, shadowed with purple-blue veins. Every tiny porcelain inch of her shrieked breeding, right down to the cool, dismissing smile she bestowed upon Michael and Lee.

‘Gilles!’

Her voice was surprisingly deep, a husky purr as she placed one scarlet-tipped hand on Gilles’ arm and raised her face for a kiss which, her seductively pouted mouth informed the onlookers, was no mere formality.

The scarlet, pouting mouth was ignored, and to Lee’s surprise Gilles lifted her hand to his lips instead. Perhaps he was embarrassed about kissing her in front of them, she deduced, although she had thought him far too arrogant to mind about that.

‘Forgive me for not dressing more formally,’ she purred, indicating the sea-green chiffon gown which Lee was quite sure came from one of the famous couture houses. ‘But I have only this afternoon returned from Paris. And these are your guests …’

Gilles introduced them.

‘Louise—Lee Raven, and Michael Roberts. Madame Beauvaise. Her father is my closest neighbour. Another wine grower …’

Louise’s lips pouted, her eyes narrowing slightly as she scrutinised Lee, so thoroughly that Lee felt there wasn’t anything about her which had not been inspected and priced—including her stockings.

‘Come, chéri,’ she protested lightly, ‘you make it sound so formal and dull. We are more to each other than mere neighbours, you and I. And you, Miss Raven—you are wearing a betrothal ring, I see. Do we take it that you and Mr Roberts are to marry?’

First the housekeeper and now this woman; there seemed no shortage of people willing to thrust her into Michael’s arms, it seemed.

‘No, we are not,’ she said shortly, not prepared to elucidate. There had been a suggestiveness behind the Frenchwoman’s words which she had disliked intensely; it had almost been that of a voyeur, distasteful though the thought was, and for the first time Lee saw the sensuality behind the redhead’s elegant poise, the greedy hunger of her mouth as it parted suddenly when she looked at Gilles. Feeling faintly sick, Lee wished she could escape to her room. There was something about Louise which reminded her of a particularly deadly species of orchid, all dazzling beauty on the surface, but underneath … poisonous.

The meal was as delicious as Lee had envisaged—soup served with a perfect, dry rosé which cleansed the palate; deliciously tender lamb with a full-bodied red which brought out the subtle flavour of the roast meat, and finally a cheese board with a choice of Rocamadour, Picodon, and Charolles, all chosen to complement the dry, fruit white wine.

Michael was a skilled raconteur, and the talk around the dinner table was general and light, only Louise pouting occasionally as though longing to be alone with the man Lee now no longer had any doubt was her lover. It was there in every look she gave him, the constant touch of her fingers on his arm; the intimate possessive glances which said quite plainly, this man is mine.

After dinner they returned to the salon. The housekeeper brought in the coffee; like the dinner service the cups were beautiful porcelain, and had not, Lee suspected, been purchased from any store.

Louise got up gracefully to pour the coffee, but to Lee’s amazement Gilles restrained her.

‘Perhaps Lee will be mother?’ he suggested with a slight inclination of the arrogant dark head. Lee was astounded, but such was the authority of his voice that it never occurred to her to refuse.

The hauteur with which Louise surveyed her almost made her laugh out loud.

‘Mother?’ she repeated disdainfully.

‘An English expression,’ Gilles informed her. ‘I should have mentioned it earlier, but Lee and I are old friends. We have an aunt in common.’ He reached for Lee’s hand as he spoke, such a look of tender amusement in his face that she almost caught her breath in disbelief.

Louise seemed to share her bemusement. She was staring from Lee to Gilles with narrowed eyes, her face no longer beautiful, but hard and dangerous.

‘I hope that as such an old friend, Lee will not mind sharing you with … newer friends …’

There was a warning as well as a question in the silky words, and Lee realised with a sense of shock that the redhead actually thought she might be a contender for Gilles’ affections. As though she would attempt anything so foolish!

She was even further astonished when Gilles carried her fingers to his lips, an expression which in anyone else might almost have been called doting, in the slate-grey eyes, now warm and smouldering.

‘Well, darling?’ he enquired in tones of deepest affection. ‘Will you be jealous of my old friends?’

‘Darling?’

For a moment Lee thought she had been the one to say the word, and then a look at Louise’s furious white face informed her that although they had heard the endearment with equal shock, the Frenchwoman had been the first to announce her shock verbally.

Lee glanced at Michael to see what he was making of all this strange behaviour on the part of their host, but he was simply relaxing in his chair, a small smile playing round his lips as he waited for the explosion none of them were in any doubt was imminent. Unless of course it was Gilles, who was looking for all the world as though there was no reason why he should not call Lee ‘darling’ in front of his mistress, and none at all why she should resent it. That look of icy hauteur would certainly have been enough to make her think twice about creating a scene, Lee reflected uncertainly, but then perhaps she had more experience of exactly how brutal Gilles could be when he wanted to than the infuriated Frenchwoman.

‘Isn’t that how one normally addresses a fiancée?’ Gilles murmured smoothly.

‘A … You mean …’

‘Lee and I are engaged to be married,’ he agreed silkily, obviously realising that while Louise had grasped the meaning of his words, she was, as yet, incapable of vocalising her reaction to them.

‘She is not wearing the Chauvigny betrothal ring.’

‘A small omission,’ Gilles said coolly. ‘It has been an understood thing between us for many years that we should marry, but on my last visit to England I found her so grown up and … desirable that I could not wait to … seal our betrothal. Since I do not carry the Chauvigny emerald around with me—which I am sure, my dear Louise, you will have already marked, will match Lee’s eyes exactly—I had to make do with this small trifle.’

Drew’s diamond was removed from Lee’s finger before she could protest, Gilles shrugging aside Louise’s impatient questions as though he found them both boring and impertinent. After a long tirade in French which Lee was mercifully relieved that she could not understand, the redhead got up and stalked over to her, eyes venomous as they stared down into her oval face.

‘You may have made this innocent your betrothed, Gilles—do not think I do not know why. The woman who gives birth to the Chauvigny heir must of course be above reproach, but she will never bring you the pleasure in bed that I did. She will have milk and water in her veins, your English bride, not blood. And as for you …’ her eyes swept Lee’s pale face. Events were moving much too fast for Lee. She ought to have denied Gilles’ statement right from the start, but she had been far too stunned, and he, taking advantage of her bemusement, had spun a tale around them which pointed to him being a skilled and resourceful liar.

‘Do you really think you will keep him?’ Louise demanded scornfully. ‘How long will it be before he leaves your bed for someone else’s, in Paris or Orléans, while you are left to sleep alone? Look at him!’ she insisted. ‘He is not one of your cold, passionless Englishmen. He will take your heart and break it as he did mine, and feed the pieces to the vultures. I wish you joy of him!’

Gilles, looking unutterably bored, held open the door as she stalked towards it, and through it, leaving a silence behind her which could only be described as deafening.